Good Tips for Mommies (and Daddies)??

Hello to those that actually read my blog... Sometimes I wonder if it's more than my 4 friends that talk to me about it in "real life."  I suppose I should admonish you all to reveal yourselves but part of me doesn't want to know.  This way I can imagine lots of people reading my blog and not have to face the harsh reality that no one really cares about what I have to say.  I mean, it's not all about me, right? :)

Anyway, today while checking up on my other blogs (personal finance, what?), I found some really cool articles about parenting and the like.  Now, of course, I'm not a parent.  Several (well, more than several) of my friends are so I necessarily think about children and babies and parenting.  Frankly, parenting scares the bejesus out of me -- especially in light of this and this.  This is not to mention that apparently it will cost about $500k to raise a child if we were to have one this year!  So, that disclaimer out of the way, I thought that I would share some online articles that I found interesting even though I am a non-parent (unless having two cats gives me street cred, which it totally should!).

How to Give Your Child an Allowance -- Gather Little by Little

-- What's interesting about this one, is that the person advocates tying allowance to chores and advocates starting an allowance at 5.  Now, I can't remember when I started getting an allowance (I think I had to pray that I would lose teeth until I was about 11ish and stopped losing said teeth).  Five seems a little young.  I like the last comment the best and think it would be the path that Erik and I would take: 

Tying an allowance to chores is just about the worst thing you can do. As parents we don’t get paid for doing the dishes or mowing the lawn– these are just things we do for the good of the family. By tying allowance to chores we give powerful incentive for our kids to do nothing if they decide they don’t need money that particular week.

Much better to give an allowance and make it just that– AN ALLOWANCE, that they can budget and spend as they like.

The BIG caveat on this is that you have to hold firm and make your child buy just everything they want using their allowance. You want a snack at the grocery store? You spend your own money. A video game? The same. We’re willing to spend X amount for sneakers. If you want a more expensive pair than you make up the difference.

Do this and watch how quickly your child learns to prioritize and manage their money.

Make Your Own Baby Food -- MSN Money

-- I'm not a parent.  I don't know and can only imagine how busy you all are, but this seems like it would be right up my alley.  This is assuming that I'm not an attorney in NYC billing a million hours a week.... Hence, me not giving birth until that chapter is closed.  At any rate, this would go along with my cooking marathons.  Also, it has the benefit of not containing a ton of preservatives.  I'm twitchy about canned and jarred food for me, so why would I feed it to my child?  Plus, isn't baby food super $$$$?  Anyway, interesting article.

Not so Fast, Parents: 10 Kid Foods that You Think Are Healthy but Are Not -- Shine from Yahoo!

-- First thought: I liked those oatmeal packages growing up!  Especially the ones that had the "magic" dried fruit/ candy-like shapes that would "magically" appear when you heated them up.  Yeah, I'm pretty sure my parents totally violated ALL of these rules.  Also, I'm pretty sure that a snack of my childhood consisted of peanut butter (#6) in between two rice cakes (#7)! This is also with the Spaghettio's and other nonsense that I ate as a child.  Ew!  And, word to the wise, don't ever try the foods from your childhood in a nostalgic moment.  It never ends well.

So, anyway, just some articles I saw and wanted to share in a consolidated fashion and not the ad hoc posting that FB provides.  Hope you at least found them a little helpful.